Anakin Skywalker: The Scrooge of Star Wars
December is the month most well known for Christmas, and all the stories it has in tow. And what story is greater than Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol. But, this year, Star Wars: The Last Jedi was released, which will clearly have an impact on the Christmas wishes of many young boys and girls as it has since the series was first released. However, what if I were to tell you that the most important Star Wars character was the very same Ebeneezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol. So, how am I going to make you believe that these two iconic characters are one in the same? Well, they follow the same structure throughout their life, resulting in the same ending.
We first meet Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace as a young boy. He lives as a slave on Tatooine with his mother. Anakin is quite young when we first meet him, our first tie in to A Christmas Carol. That’s because the ghost of Christmas past appears in the form of a young boy, that paralleling the prequels being before A New Hope, and that we first meet Anakin as a child. The ghost of Christmas past allows Scrooge to fly, which is interesting due to the fact that Anakin is heavily associated with flying both in podracers and Naboo fighter ships.
The next time we see Anakin is in Attack of the Clones, and he’s now 19 years old. Anakin meets with Padme for the first time in years, and is pretty obviously in love with her, shown by him creepily staring at her. However, they end up falling in love and at the end of Attack of the Clones, they get married. This is a parallel to Scrooge and Belle, who was to be Scrooge’s wife.
We find out that Belle is breaking off their marriage due to Scrooge’s heart being corrupted by greed and a lust for wealth. Anakin and Padme’s relationship dies after Anakin has been corrupted by the dark side, as well as a lust for power and the ability to save the ones he loves from death. Ironically, he couldn’t save his own relationship with his pregnant wife, and ended up force choking her. Luckily, Obi Wan stopped him from killing her, but Padme died soon afterwards.
Both Anakin’s and Scrooge’s relationships were broken due to an evil and corrupt man. Jacob Marley was the man who corrupted Scrooge into becoming the heartless business man we know him as. However, Anakin’s mentor, Emperor Palpatine, corrupted not only his mind but his physical state. This was after Anakin’s limbs were chopped off in a fight with Obi Wan, and Palpatine gave him a new cyborg body, turning Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader.
We first see Darth Vader in Rogue One, showing off his complete change in character. No longer do we have the unsure, whiny, but caring Anakin Skywalker. We now have the cruel unrelenting harsh Darth Vader, who isn’t bothered by force choking even his most useful workers. This brings up the parallel between the Empire’s work force and Bob Cratchit. While we know of Bob Cratchit’s family, we don’t know about the families of those working for the Empire. However, they both share one thing in common, they’ve got a terrible boss. While Scrooge only makes him work on Christmas day, and Darth Vader could kill you at one small mistake, both are terrible bosses to their employees.
For A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, we don’t see much of a change in Darth Vader, but we do see the introduction of a new character pair, that being Luke and Fred. However, Luke is Darth Vader’s son, rather than Fred being Srooge’s child. Fred always invites Scrooge to Christmas dinner, to which he always denies. But Luke tries to invite Darth Vader back to the light side of the force, but he also denies this offer.
And finally, we arrive at Return of the Jedi, the final movie prominently featuring Darth Vader. This is where Scrooge meets the ghost of Christmas yet to come, and becomes a new man. Scrooge’s ghost is a hooded phantom that refuses to speak. However, Darth Vader’s ghost is Darth Sidious. The most obvious similarity between the two is the look with both wearing a large, black cloak with a hood. But Darth Sidious changes Darth Vader back to being good by shocking Luke. This causes Darth Vader to save his child by throwing Darth Sidious down a hole. This figuratively kills Darth Vader, bringing back Anakin Skywalker.
Luke and Anakin make up, with Anakin dying because he showed Luke his face without the mask. Luke brings Anakin back down to Endor and gave him a funeral burning at the feast by the Ewoks, much like how Scrooge finally ended up attending Fred’s feast.
